LABOR: Trade Union Banner

The American Federation of Labor completed its 46th annual convention with almost unanimous pronouncements of policy.

Injunctions. Vice President Matthew Woll, with his thick black hair bristling defiance of any and all who would stand in the way of trade unionism and its weapon, the strike, stepped upon the speakers’ platform, urged trade unionists to scoff at injunctions “like red-blooded men whose rights are invaded.”

His report on injunctions, adopted unanimously, said in part:

“Government by injunction must cease if government by law is to function unchallenged. The way equity courts have used injunctions in industrial disputes has created in the minds of wage earners a general distrust of our courts. Equity courts are without authority, constitutional or statutory, to interfere with or infringe upon government by law.”

Open Shop, Company Union.

Extra-constitutional powers were accorded the Executive Council to levy a special assessment on the 3,000,000 members of the A. F. of L., in order to create a huge fund with which to fight company unions and shop representative schemes. A resolution announced:

“The purpose to study these deceptive organizations [company unions] and unite our movement in a great effort to eliminate them and to replace them with free associations of workers under the trade union banner has our most hearty approval. We would only add that the equally enslaving institution, falsely and treacherously called the open shop, be added to the field of study and action.”

Communism. The A. F. of L. resolved that the Soviet regime in Russia is “the most unscrupulous, most antisocial, most menacing institution in the world today.” William Z. Foster looked on sneeringly, while John L. Lewis, burly chief of miners, called him an “Arch Priest of Communism.”

Fascism, Italian phenomenon, was denounced, deplored.

Passaic Strike. “Remember that the American people are deeply stirred over the Passaic struggle, throughout which law and order have been on the side of the workers and lawlessness and disorder have been monopolized by the mills and their police and judicial allies.”

The convention voted systematic relief to the Passaic strikers, but failed to produce any scheme for prompt settlement.

Mexico. An investigation of the Mexican Federation of Labor (“the kept woman of the Calles Administration”) was ordered. The A. F. of L. threatened to sever its relations with the Mexican organization unless it promptly “clears its skirts.”

Non-Partisan? “It is not a departure from our non-partisan policy to make the assertion that Governor Smith has been one of the foremost supporters of the doctrine that labor should have the first consideration. . . .”

The convention then proceeded to back Robert F. Wagner, Democratic Senatorial candidate in New York, as “a man of the people,” against Republican Senator James W. Wadsworth, who was said to have a “practically unbroken record of opposition to all forward-looking legislation.”

Senator Wadsworth’s record was listed: “Voted three times againstwoman suffrage . . . against child labor amendment . . . against minimum wage law . . . against Railroad Eight-Hour Bill . . . for Cummins Railroad Bill . . . voted twice to increase daily working hours of Government employes. . . .”

Said President Green of A. F. of L.: “We look for the most successful campaign in years. Never was labor more determined to reward its friends and punish its enemies than it is this year.”

Exit. The convention re-elected President Green and his eight vice presidents, and then adjourned to meet in Los Angeles next October.